Also helping Europe is an accelerated shift to renewables as well as an offsetting return to coal.

European Union leaders said the war has had a silver lining in terms of moving the bloc forward on targets for renewable energy. Countries that were previously reluctant to get on board with expanding renewables are finally doing so, and those on the wagon are investing more. As a result, as part of its REPowerEU package, the EU agreed to increase its targets for renewable energy to 45 percent by 2030 this week, up from a prior target of 40 percent. (The EU gets just over 20 percent of its total energy from renewables right now.) A new report from the International Energy Agency suggests the world could add as much renewable energy in the next five years as it did in the last 20 years.
...
But you can’t make silver without getting some dross. In an effort to replace Russian oil and gas in the short term, countries like Germany are reactivating some old coal-fired power plants to fill the energy gap. Countries including France, Austria, the Netherlands, and Italy are putting mothballed coal plants back into service. And EU countries are negotiating long-term contracts for gas with countries like Qatar, which policymakers said could ultimately lock these countries into buying more gas than they hope to need by the time 2030 rolls around.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/12/21/europe-russia-energy-climate-change-policy-renewable/
See also World Economic Forum, Can Europe’s rush for renewables solve its energy crisis?, Feb 10, 2023.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/02/eu-renewables-energy-crisis/
Second, G7 recently issued an exception on G7-ban to Japan because it needs oil badly - so 6 more exceptions to go?
Does Japan really need oil badly?

[Japanese] Government data released on Thursday [Jan 19, 2023] showed that oil imports from Russia fell around 56% last year, while coal imports were reduced by 41%.
But imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) were up more than 4% in 2022.
Sakhalin-1 produces oil, while Sakhalin-2 produces both crude and LNG, and experts say access to Russian gas is what Japan is most concerned about protecting.
Last year, 9.5% of Japan’s total LNG imports came from Russia, up from 8.8% in 2021 — most of it from Sakhalin-2.
So when Japan joined a price cap on Russian oil last year with its G7 allies, the European Union and Australia, it obtained an exemption for Sakhalin-2.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/sakhalin-exception-the-russian-energy-japan-cant-quit/

Japan has almost no fossil fuel of its own and relies on imported natural gas and coal for much of its electricity.
...
“It’s not as if Japan can’t manage without this. They can. They simply don’t want to,” said James Brown, a professor at Temple University’s Japan campus. Prof. Brown, who studies Russia-Japan relations, said Japan should move to withdraw from the Sakhalin projects eventually “if they’re really serious about supporting Ukraine.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-breaks-with-u-s-allies-buys-russian-oil-at-prices-above-cap-1395accb

TD has told me (on the phone) that one can buy I-bonds electronically with refunds. I have no doubt one is able to purchase bonds electronically this way. But I remain skeptical about this procedure enabling one to purchase additional $5K in savings bonds above and beyond one's $10K/year limit.
What you quoted sounds like the standard way of buying electronic savings bonds. One deposits money into a TD account. Then one uses the money in that account to purchase electronic savings bonds.
Here's a two page piece from TD on "Buying Savings Bonds ..."
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/mar0023.pdf
On the first page is a description of how you fund your TD account to buy savings bonds:
"How do I buy savings bonds? ... Have your bank or employer send funds directly to your TreasuryDirect account, or send IRS Form 8888 with your federal tax return and direct your refund to your TreasuryDirect account."
There's no verbiage in this section about actually buying savings bonds with this money. This is the way you buy any electronic savings bonds, Series I or Series EE. Nor is any distinction drawn between money in your account that came from your bank, your payroll department, or the IRS.
On the second page is a box that reads:

---

Series I Bonds                             Series EE Bonds
Sold electronically at face              [sold $25 to $10,000]
value in any amount from
$25 to 10,000. Sold in
paper at face value, in
multiples of $50, up to
$5,000. Use IRS Form 8888.
...

---

Each year, buy as much as $10,000 of electronic Series I,
$10,000 of electronic Series EE, and $5,000 of paper Series I.

---

This morning's Wall Street Journal contained two reports- unrelated, but each sharing suggestions of a coming recession.
Following are heavily edited excerpts from those two reports... emphasis in text was added –

Saudi-Led Oil Producers to Lower Output Further
A group of large oil producers led by Saudi Arabia said Sunday they would cut more than a million barrels of output a day starting next month, a surprise move that upset Washington and led to a jump in crude prices amid concerns about the global economy. The output cuts amount to about 3% of the world’s petroleum production taken off the market in seven months.
The production cut will hit an oil market that was widely seen as tightly balanced between supply and demand, meaning it could lead to a longer-term rise in prices. If higher prices last, they could stoke inflation and complicate decisions for central bankers, who are caught between trying to tame rising prices and propping up a teetering banking system.
According to people familiar with the decision, it was negotiated primarily between the Saudis and Russian to get ahead of a global slowdown and raise prices to fund Saudi Arabia’s ambitious domestic projects and replenish Russia’s reserves.
Oil prices had been trending downward since late last year on global recession fears [and] some in OPEC see oil demand taking a hit in a recession. The price moved beyond $85 a barrel after the announcement, before falling slightly.
“Given the preventive nature of OPEC decisions, there is clearly something OPEC knows about demand trends and inventories that we have yet to discover fully in overall supply and demand balances,” said [the] global head of energy strategy at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
An oil analyst at Denmark’s Saxo Bank said the decision to cut production again reflected concerns over the U.S. economy, where interest rates are widely expected to increase.

World Bank Warns of Lost Decade for Global Economy
The World Bank is warning of a “lost decade” ahead for global growth, as the war in Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic and high inflation compound existing structural challenges.
The Washington, D.C.-based international lender says that “it will take a herculean collective policy effort to restore growth in the next decade to the average of the previous one.” Three main factors are behind the reversal in economic progress: an aging workforce, weakening investment and slowing productivity.
“Across the world, a structural growth slowdown is under way: At current trends, the global potential growth rate—the maximum rate at which an economy can grow without igniting inflation—is expected to fall to a three-decade low over the remainder of the 2020s,” the World Bank said.
Potential growth was 3.5% in the decade from 2000 to 2010. It dropped to 2.6% a year on average from 2011 to 2021, and will shrink further to 2.2% a year from 2022 to 2030, the bank said. About half of the slowdown is attributable to demographic factors.
Weakness in growth could be even more pronounced if financial crises erupt in major economies and trigger a global recession, the World Bank report cautions.
Earlier this year, the World Bank sharply lowered its short-term growth forecast for the global economy, citing persistently high inflation that has elevated the risk for a worldwide recession. It expects global growth to slow to 1.7% in 2023.
The World Bank identifies a number of challenges conspiring to push down global growth: weak investment, slow productivity growth, restrictive trade measures such as tariffs and the continuing negative effects—such as learning losses from school closures—because of the pandemic.
Some view the World Bank’s projection for a lost decade as too pessimistic. Other organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington-based think tank, expect global GDP growth to expand a more robust 2.9% in 2023.
Harvard University economist Karen Dynan said that aging populations in nearly every part of the world will be a drag on global growth, but she was more optimistic on raising productivity—output per worker.

Hi, guys.
A preemptory mea culpa on any editing gaffes. Chip and I spent the week in New Orleans, during most of which time she was at a huge professional conference for IT people and I was pecking away on a little laptop in an uncomfortable chair at our hotel. We had some moments of cultural exchange and some good food - a beignet taste-off and praline panel among them - and enjoyed weather that was, by Midwest standards, freakish.
The April issue includes four pieces on fixed-income investing: Lynn's survey of bond funds for hostile environments, my rewrite of David Sherman's commentary with an okay takeaway in the conclusion, and profiles of Osterweis Strategic Income and RiverPark (soon to be CrossingBridge) Strategic Income. Both reflect my predisposition toward conservative and independent. For me it was challenging because the ratings services (Morningstar and Lipper) stick these sorts of funds in a jarring array of categories and Morningstar makes cross-category comparisons extra challenging.
Separately and without overt pre-planning, Devesh and I looked at two wildly different emerging markets funds. I spoke at length with Lewis Kaufman of Artisan Developing World ($62B market cap, average p/e of 36, 90% t/o ratio, 94 active share) while I profiled Seafarer Overseas Value ($4.5B market cap, average p/e of 9, 14% t/o ratio, 98 active share). Mr. Kaufman is a certifiable star, Mr. Espinosa seems on the target to becoming one.
Devesh also walked folks through the performance of his most recent recs, which is a good habit for writers to develop and for readers to expect. Shadow caught us up on changes in the industry. Charles announced a new payment platform.
A couple fund managers have rattled my cage following the issue, so I'll explore a couple leads for you.
Hope it's a good read for you.

The current IRS form 8888 says you can have your refund electronically deposited to a Treasury Direct account, avoiding paper bonds.
"You can request that your refund (or part of it) be used to buy up to $5,000 in series I savings bonds. You can buy them electronically by direct deposit into your TreasuryDirect® account. See instructions under Part I for details. Or, if you don’t have a TreasuryDirect® account, you can buy paper savings bonds. See the instructions under Part II for details."
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8888.pdf
It looks like one would enter the TD account number, check the Savings box, and use the Treasury Direct routing number 051736158 as one of the Part I items. Has anyone succeeded in doing this?

Good article from Schwab that Tom Mandell linked
https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/why-go-long-when-short-term-bonds-yield-more
Recommends intermediate bonds
Authers at Bloomberg has a very interesting article pointing out that the hopes that bank crisis will precipitate Fed easing also seem to require recession. Not good for earnings!
He thinks the potential for that scenario is overdone, and the Fed could continue to raise rates to control inflation while continuing QT.
"In the short term, the risks are that markets will continue to shift away from the position of the last few weeks, and perhaps begin to put some credence in the Fed’s claim that it won’t be cutting rates this year. A barrage of data that is about to hit for the beginning of the month should enlighten us further. While the banks’ crisis might not hurt economic activity that much, tighter money can be expected to have a big effect, with a lag. The most important place to look for that could be the corporate sector.
As Torsten Slok, chief US economist of Apollo Management, shows in this chart, capital expenditures (capex) have started falling. That can be expected to have a negative multiplier effect over time, which would be good for defeating inflation, but not so great for economic activity, or corporate revenues and profits:
And on the subject of profits, the latest National Income Profit Accounts data, compiled as part of the process of calculating gross domestic product, came out last week. This is a measure of corporate profits that eschews the smoothing that goes with the GAAP accounting used to publish companies’ accounts. They’re typically published, as below, with adjustments both for inventory valuation (IVA) and capital consumption (CCAdj). Over time, NIPA profits and S&P 500 GAAP profits do tend to move roughly together, because there are limits to the creative accounting that companies can do. But in the short term they can differ. It’s therefore not a great sign that NIPA profits took a dip in the final quarter of last year:
There are reasons for concern about the remaining three quarters of this year, many of which are not yet reflected in market pricing. For now, however, it looks as though the damage done by the banks has been overpriced. Absent big surprises in the new data — or fresh external shocks like the Opec+ agreement to limit oil production that spurred a rise of 8% for Brent crude at the Asian opening — it’s best to brace in the near term for bond yields to rise from where they are now, while more speculative investments give up ground. "

Thrivent Partner Small Cap Value Fund, TPSIX merged into Thrivent Small Cap Stock TSCSX in 2015.
Thrivent Partner International Stock Fund AAITX merged into Thrivent Partner Worldwide Allocation TWAAX in 2011, which was renamed Thrivent International Allocation in 2019.
https://fp.thriventfunds.com/resources/fund-changes-and-mergers.html
There is only one Thrivent mutual fund currently submanaged. That is TWAAX, submanaged by Goldman Sachs. All the other submangers (e.g. Turner, TRP, Mercator, Principal, Aberdeen, DuPoint) used by various funds in 2014 have been jettisoned.
https://www.thriventfunds.com/about-us/our-fund-managers.html

Effective April 30, 2019, Thrivent Partner Worldwide Allocation Fund changed its name to Thrivent International Allocation Fund. Principal Global Investors, LLC (“Principal”) and Aberdeen Asset Managers Limited (“Aberdeen”) no longer serve as subadvisers to the Fund. Goldman Sachs Asset Management, L.P. will continue to subadvise the Fund. Thrivent Asset Management, LLC currently manages a portion of the Fund and will also manage the portions previously managed by Principal and Aberdeen.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/811869/000119312519126040/d735543d497.htm
Information about Thrivent from its membership application:

Thrivent (“Thrivent Financial for Lutherans”) ... is a membership-owned fraternal organization. ... We welcome Christians* seeking to live out their faith. *For more information on Thrivent's Christian Common Bond, visit thrivent.com/christiancalling

Until recently, Thrivent offered an interval fund with this in mind: Thrivent Church Loan and Income Fund. But it has recently closed that fund and is winding it down.

Just as Vanguard Flagship customers ($1M+ invested in VG funds directly at Vanguard) may open new Primecap-managed fund (VHCOX, VPMCX, VPCCX) accounts, T. Rowe Price Summit Select customers ($250K+ invested in TRP funds directly at Price) may open new accounts in TRP's closed funds including PRWCX.
(A couple of closed funds, but not PRWCX, will reopen later this month.)
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/60860/t-rowe-price-new-horizons-and-emerging-markets-funds-reopening-to-new-investors
At the Summit Personal Services level ($500K), investors may open new accounts in TRAIX with a $50K min.

Good point - PRWCX is closed to most new investors.
The fund is closed to new accounts other than investors whose accounts meet any of the following criteria:
• Participants in an employer-sponsored retirement plan where the fund already serves as an investment option;
• Direct rollovers from an employer-sponsored retirement plan to a new T. Rowe Price IRA;
• Accounts held directly with T. Rowe Price that qualify through participation in certain T. Rowe Price programs;
• T. Rowe Price multi-asset products (such as funds-of-funds);
• Discretionary accounts managed by T. Rowe Price or one of its affiliates;
• Wrap, asset allocation, and other advisory programs, if permitted by T. Rowe Price.
T. Rowe Price submitted an SEC filing (dated 03/22/2023) for Capital Appreciation Equity ETF.
David Giroux will be the portfolio manager.
The new ETF will normally invest at least 80% of its net asset in equity securities.
PRWCX normally invests at least 50% of its total assets in stocks while the remaining assets
are generally invested in corporate/government debt and bank loans.
Consequently, this ETF will not be a clone of PRWCX.
MFO Link

Thanks stayCalm! Good catch. The variable name for Alpha Ratings was updated recently for consistency, which messed-up the search. I've added a month to your subscription for the hassle and the feedback. If you see anything else, or have suggestions for improvement, please reach back. Below is result using the Alpha Rating along with couple others ...

An interesting take on the new Restrict Act opening a back door way of digital surveillance and prevent tech mergers https://salon.com/2023/04/02/patriot-act-on-steroids-left-and-right-unite-against-fear-mongering-tiktok-ban/
An excerpt:

That doesn't appear to square with the actual language of the bill. Although most of its legislative language is clearly geared toward controlling corporate mergers — and giving the president a new tool that can force a foreign company to divest itself of U.S. interests — there's no specific provision that protects individual users of banned websites or software. Instead, it would give an appointed presidential committee the power to make new rules and enforce them, with little oversight.
How could those new powers pose a threat to individual users? First, there's a real possibility that, according to the current version, an individual user could face criminal charges for downloading or accessing banned content, such as through the use of a virtual private network. Depending on the appetite for enforcement, the penalties could include up to 20 years in prison for using a VPN to access a banned site — and, in some interpretations, up to $1,000,000 in fines.
Another threat is the lack of transparency and accountability the bill grants the appointed committee that would decide which apps to ban. The lack of judicial review and reliance on Patriot Act-like surveillance powers could open the door to unjustified targeting of individuals or groups….
….Across its 55 pages, the Restrict Act offers a lot of winding, tricky language with room for broad interpretation. Concerns are emerging about how the bill could threaten civil liberties and First Amendment rights, especially considering its vague language, lack of oversight for sweeping new executive (not elected) authorities, and the secretive nature of the FISA courts, which rule on a range of intelligence and surveillance cases.

TIPS are a risky asset short term, primarily because of their poor liquidity. (Even in normal times the spreads on the longer ones approach 50bp.) Planning on rebalancing out of them into stocks during a crunch might not be a great idea; for example, take a gander at what TIPS prices did in late 2008.

Reality check - How many of your current holdings (aside from cash) did you possess …
- 20 years ago?
- 25 years ago?
- 30 years ago?
None of mine date back 25 years (1998 or earlier). But three go back over 20 years. Two are multi-asset funds (10% of portfolio each). The third is a balanced fund (5-7% of portfolio).

Hi Charles
In the screener, the 'Alpha Rating' selection under the Alpha Beta metrics section is not working. On selection of value 4 - 5: Above Average, the result page displays
Alpha Beta Metrics
• Alpha Rating (In Type):
Also any selection on this filter produces no results in the output.
I can send you screenshots.
Thanks

I think a lack of discipline or psychology plays a role in selling a 30-year TIPS before maturity, but that characterization puts the reason for selling completely on the investor's shoulders as some sort of moral or psychic failing. A lot can happen to one's finances in 30 years that may have nothing to do with discipline and everything to do with unavoidable liquidity needs. I've seen some market commentators point out that if you just bought and held onto stocks through the Great Depression you would've done fabulously. Meanwhile unemployment peaked at 25% in 1933. Many people in such circumstances were understandably afraid and sold after an 89% decline in the Dow from peak to trough, but just as many I imagine had no choice but to sell to stay alive back then. Discipline or a lack of it has nothing to do with selling for unemployed people who have to pay their bills. That is is the unseen personal 30-year risk in holding such a long-term bond. Today, I would think unforseen health risks, might be a more likely reason for selling before maturity, as uncovered medical bills are still a large cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. But recessions, job loss, and selling of securities do tend to go hand in hand.
I would add just from a market history perspective, that leverage plays a really terrible role in the above recession/depression scenario. A recession hits, people lose their jobs, stocks fall and suddenly investors are getting margin calls on their leveraged bets which they can't pay because they're out of work. That forces them to sell their securities even if they want to hold on for a recovery. Worse, when they sell, that puts further downward pressure on the market and more people who consequently get margin calls. Selling begets selling and you end up in a weird kind of death spiral caused by leverage. My impression is margin levels were really high and easy to get prior to the Great Depression. And we saw just what happened with leverage in the 2008 crash. And now we see what happened with SVB, and seemingly safe Treasury bonds. This is why the FDIC exists, and they label banks too big to fail, although I think there are other ways of addressing these problems that benefit the public more and banks less.

Retail investors may not have the fortitude to hang on to 30-yr TIPS. But IMO, holding 5-yr TIPS to maturity and rolling them over (and laddering) should work fine too to approximately capture the CPI. The real-yields (TIPS yields) have been in +/- 2% range most of the time (FRED charts go back to 2003 although TIPS started a few years back in late-1990s), so it isn't as if the investors would miss the boat on locking high real-rates. BTW, the current real yields are 5-yr 1.20%, 10-yr 1.16%, 30-yr 1.44%.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1264R
https://home.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/TextView?type=daily_treasury_real_yield_curve&field_tdr_date_value=2023

Good read. Don’t bet the farm on any particular point. Conventional wisdom. Wish the 10-year would get back up above 4% where I’d plunk a portion of cash back into GNMA. Just a hunch that that’s a more profitable (in & out) trade than at the current rate around 3.5%. Yes, short term rates have fallen dramatically in recent weeks.
The insights into falling commodity prices are of interest (although precious metals / miners have surged this year). Suspect the commodity downturn is normal after a very heady period. Should level off. Checking 3 commodity related funds I’ve owned in the past (but no longer own) …
1-Year Return … 3-Year Annualized
PRAFX -11% …….… +19%
PRNEX - 2% ……..… +26%
BRCAX - 8% ……..…. +22%
*Numbers (rounded) from MarketWatch

That would correspond with the two emails I got from Fidelity 11:45PM Friday evening:
(1) FCONX has closed to new investors
(2) FCRDX has closed to new investors
FCRDX shares were likely moved to FMNDX.
Fidelity's web page(s) may be a little slow in making changes, but the filings have been updated (and are available on the website).

Fidelity® Conservative Income Bond Fund/FCNVX
In this summary prospectus, the term “shares” (as it relates to the fund) means the class of shares offered through this summary prospectus.
Fidelity® Conservative Income Bond Fund, a class of shares of the fund, was formerly known as Institutional Class.
Summary Prospectus
October 29, 2022
As Revised April 1, 2023
...
There is no purchase minimum for shares of the fund offered in this prospectus.

Summary Prospectus
With a pretty flat short term yield curve and rates still rising, I haven't paid much attention to this fund (SEC 30 day yield 4.60% after waivers), preferring MMFs like FZDXX (SEC 7 day yield4.66% after waivers). Given that you have under $100 in the fund, it looks like you concur.

A Fido email came on trades when I didn't do any.
On a/c login, I found that Ultra-ST FCONX (formerly, Investor class) was auto-converted into FCNVX (formerly, Institutional class). Fido website doesn't even recognize FCONX ticker now, while other sites still do. Fido FCNVX info isn't updated either as it still shows $1M minimum - that of course isn't true anymore as my current balance is UNDER $100.00.
I was surprised by this sudden change for which there was no prior notification.
FCONX was among the rare Fido funds to which frequent-trading didn't apply. I checked that remains valid for FCNVX.
Another good change was that the new ER for FCNVX is just 25 bps.
https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/summary/316146521

I thought I knew what stable value funds in a 401k were. I used them for years, but what you show looks to me more like an annuity.
Stable value fund is available in my 401(K) plan. It is an insurance product that invest in short term treasurys but has the liquidity like money market fund.
There's a lot of subtlety in attributes of these products that results in a fair amount of confusion. In a broad sense everything people have mentioned here is a stable value fund. In practical terms, the distinctions don't matter much.

stable value funds and their close cousins, guaranteed investment contracts, together accounted for 21.3 percent of the assets in such plans in September [2006]
...
The stable value funds in 401(k) plans are generally a pool of short-term bonds or other debt-market investments protected by an insurance contract known as a wrapper.... The underlying investments are generally corporate bonds, which yield more than government bonds but are also at a greater risk for loss of principal. He said Treasury bonds were a more secure long-term choice than stable value funds, which may be subject “to the law of unintended consequences."
...
Like other stable value funds in 401(k) plans, [the Trust Advisors Stable Value Plus fund] was not a mutual fund but a collective trust.

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/business/mutfund/08stable.html
"Stable value" can refer to even more varied investment structures. Historically, or "traditionally", these were insurance products - guaranteed insurance contracts like TIAA Traditional issued directly by an insurance company.

TIAA Traditional is a guaranteed insurance contract and not an investment for federal securities law purposes.

https://www.tiaa.org/public/learn/retirement-planning-and-beyond/how-do-traditional-annuities-work
"Stable value" evolved into a much broader range of investment structures. The common thread is the use of insurance to provide investment value stability.

Stable value investment options may be offered by investment managers, trust companies, or insurance companies in various structures, such as separately managed accounts, commingled funds or guaranteed insurance accounts. Sometimes a stable value investment option will be managed by a plan sponsor. While stable value investment options may be managed or structured in a variety of ways, the important similarity is the use of stable value investment contracts, issued by banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions, which convey to the investment option the ability to carry certain assets at book value.

https://www.stablevalue.org/stable-value/ (Links in original)
For a brief shining(?) moment, stable value funds were offered in retail IRAs. But SEC concerns about pricing led to their demise:

[Stable value as an] investing option has disappeared for individuals [in 2005] because of questions raised by the Securities and Exchange Commission about how to value the funds, although no formal ruling against them has been made.
...
Stable value funds have been available for many years, and remain available today-although on a much more limited basis-in some 401(k) plans and defined benefit pension plans maintained by employers. These investments come under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Labor, which has strict, but somewhat different regulations, from the SEC. The SEC's questions affect investments by individuals in IRAs ...
Scudder launched the first stable value IRA fund in 1997, offering the funds as Scudder Preservation Plus Income and Scudder Preservation Plus. Others were offered by PBGH, Gartmore Morley, Oppenheimer and other mutual fund managers.
But the SEC began raising questions about how to determine the daily valuation of funds with insurance wrappers, which managers had been pricing at book value. The wrapper agreement, which is what made the stable value fund what it was, was also the part that was raising questions at the SEC. The SEC, which initially approved the funds, will not comment on the situation other than to say that there are no stable value funds now registered with the SEC, although there are some nonregistered ones in existence, says John Nester, an SEC spokesman.

https://www.fa-mag.com/news/article-1120.html?issue=56